lity as administration itself. This critical
opposition is the consequence of Cabinet government. The great scene of
debate, the great engine of popular instruction and political
controversy, is the legislative assembly. A speech there by an eminent
statesman, a party movement by a great political combination, are the
best means yet known for arousing, enlivening, and teaching a people.
The Cabinet system ensures such debates, for it makes them the means by
which statesmen advertise themselves for future and confirm themselves
in present Governments. It brings forward men eager to speak, and gives
them occasions to speak. The deciding catastrophes of Cabinet
governments are critical divisions preceded by fine discussions.
Everything which is worth saying, everything which ought to be said,
most certainly WILL be said. Conscientious men think they ought to
persuade others; selfish men think they would like to obtrude
themselves. The nation is forced to hear two sides--all the sides,
perhaps, of that which most concerns it. And it likes to hear--it is
eager to know. Human nature despises long arguments which come to
nothing--heavy speeches which precede no motion--abstract disquisitions
which leave visible things where they were. But all men heed great
results, and a change of Government is a great result. It has a hundred
ramifications; it runs through society; it gives hope to many, and it
takes away hope from many. It is one of those marked events which, by
its magnitude and its melodrama, impress men even too much. And debates
which have this catastrophe at the end of them--or may so have it--are
sure to be listened to, and sure to sink deep into the national mind.
Travellers even in the Northern States of America, the greatest and
best of Presidential countries, have noticed that the nation was "not
specially addicted to politics"; that they have not a public opinion
finished and chastened as that of the English has been finished and
chastened. A great many hasty writers have charged this defect on the
"Yankee race," on the Anglo-American character; but English people, if
they had no motive to attend to politics, certainly would not attend to
politics. At present there is BUSINESS in their attention. They assist
at the determining crisis; they arrest or help it. Whether the
Government will go out or remain is determined by the debate, and by
the division in Parliament. And the opinion out of doors, the secret
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